


Sports Drabbles: Volleyball

by HapaxLegomenon



Series: Sports Drabbles [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Challenge: Sport Anime Shipping Olympics | SASO 2016, Challenge: Sports Anime Shipping Olympics | SASO 2015, F/F, Gen, M/M, Multi, Sports Winter Anime Games 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:38:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 17,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7995565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapaxLegomenon/pseuds/HapaxLegomenon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles and ficlets written during the Sports Anime Shipping Olympics (SASO, 2015-2016) and Sports Winter Anime Games (SWAG, 2016) for Haikyuu!!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kenma/Kuroo, One-sided love

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of short fills written for Haikyuu!! during the Sports Anime Shipping Olympics (SASO) in 2015 and 2016 and the Sports Winter Anime Games (SWAG) in 2016. Each fill is 400-1000 words, and each "chapter" is named with the relevant ship or characters as well as a brief summary of the ficlet.
> 
> Some of these short fills may, someday, be reworked and expanded upon into proper-length oneshots. They are also largely written for speed rather than quality so may be somewhat lacking compared to more polished fics, but for now, I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Mild angst

The first time Kuroo says it, he’s met with silence and Kenma’s cat-eyed stare, the one he usually reserves for volleyball and particularly difficult levels -- the one that means he has a problem to solve. Kuroo waits, as he has learned to do, but he’s still Kuroo so when the silence stretches on too long he repeats himself.  
  
“I said I love you.”  
  
Sure enough, this has the intended effect of startling Kenma out of his stare. Kenma blinks, flicks his eyes to the side.  
  
“How do you feel about that?” Kuroo presses.  
  
Kenma shrugs one shoulder. “I care about you. But not like that.”  
  
“That’s okay,” Kuroo says, and despite his disappointment, he really means it. He loves Kenma, in every way, and if he has to love Kenma without Kenma loving him back, he can do that. He’s never been altruistic in the least, but if Kenma asked for the moon Kuroo would get it for him. Except Kenma would never, ever ask for anything he knew Kuroo couldn’t give, and maybe that’s why Kuroo loves him. And that’s why Kuroo isn’t afraid that this will change things between them. Kenma knows. Kenma won’t ask him to leave or to stop loving him because Kenma knows he can’t do it.  
  
He asks, anyway, just to be sure.  
  
Kenma says, “Don’t be stupid, Kuro.”  
  
\--  
  
Except, it does change one thing.  
  
Kuroo takes to declaring his love for Kenma on a frequent and loud basis.  
  
During practice -- “That toss could have been a little higher, but it’s okay, I still love you!”  
  
Watching him play video games on lazy Saturday mornings -- “You should pay more attention to me, that game will never love you like I do, you should take advantage of that.”  
  
When he’s sick and Kenma brings over soup and tissues -- “Aww, thanks babe, I knew there was a reason I loved you.”  
  
It makes Kenma roll his eyes, but he’s not really irritated and Kuroo knows it. It’s playful, like a game. Sometimes it even makes Kenma’s eyes crinkle in the corners, makes him smile despite his sighs. It’s fun.  
  
It hurts a little, but that's okay, it’s fun.  
  
\--  
  
“You should try to stop.”  
  
“I can’t.”  
  
“I don’t feel the same way. Maybe I never will.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“Does it hurt?”  
  
“Sometimes.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I love you. It’s okay if you don’t love me back.”  
  
“I do. Just.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay.”  
  
\--  
  
The night before Kuroo leaves for university, he and Kenma sleep wrapped around each other, so tight that Kuroo isn’t quite sure which legs are his and which are Kenma’s anymore. It’ll be the first time they’ve been apart for such a long time and Kuroo is dreading that as much as he is looking forward to university. Kenma doesn’t have the same excitement, he just has the separation, and Kuroo thinks that this is probably harder on Kenma than it is for him.  
  
“I’m going to miss you,” Kenma says, rough and wet into his shoulder. Kuroo kisses the top of his head and thinks about how much he loves the boy beside him.  
  
“Me too. I love you so much.”  
  
“I love you too.”  
  
They mean it differently, and that’s okay.  
  
\--  
  
“There’s someone,” Kenma starts, voice quiet over the phone line, and even though Kenma can’t see him, Kuroo forces a smile. Forces a smile so Kenma won’t hear his heart breaking just that little bit more.  
  
“That’s great, Kenma,” he says.  
  
“Is it… is that okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” Kuroo makes himself say. “Yeah. You sound happy. I want you to be happy.”  
  
He can feel Kenma’s relief through the silence.  
  
“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Kuroo jokes, digging his nails into the palm of his hand. “He won’t know what hit him.”  
  
Kenma is rolling his eyes and Kuroo knows it.  
  
“…Thanks, Kuro.”  
  
“Yeah, anytime. Look, I gotta go, okay? But let me know how things turn out. I want to know everything.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“’Kay. Bye. Love you.”  
  
Kenma hangs up and Kuroo listens to the dial tone and tried not to cry because this, this is not okay.


	2. Asahi/Daichi/Suga, Hogwarts AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Mentions of sexual behaviour

Suga was sitting in his armchair entirely the wrong way, with his feet sticking up over the top and his head dangling above the floor. He’d been like that for a few minutes, now, and Daichi was just a little bit impressed by the deep vermilion his face had become.  
  
“You know what,” Suga said suddenly, craning his neck awkwardly to stare up at Daichi. “I think it’s about time for a sleepover.”  
  
Daichi sighed, like it was some big inconvenience to him, but he closed and set aside his book and then kneeled on the carpet beside Suga’s head. Suga grinned up at him and pouted his lips out and was rewarded with a quick kiss before being hauled unceremoniously upright.  
  
“His room?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Their mutual boyfriend being the only Hufflepuff boy in their year came in very handy sometimes.  
  
As did the fact that the Hufflepuff common room had no real password, and Daichi had bullied Asahi into teaching them the entry knock early on during their first year. Having lived in the castle for the better part of five years now, it was hilariously easy to sneak through the basements to the Hufflepuff rooms, near the kitchens. Suga disappeared briefly to charm some pastries out of the kitchen staff -- not that it was a difficult job, they all adored him and his sugar-sweet smile.   
  
When they crawled through the barrel entrance, Asahi was sitting alone in one corner of the Hufflepuff room, glaring at a textbook and looking decidedly stressed out. The young first and second years were giving him a wide berth, eyeing him warily. Daichi snorted -- they hadn’t figured out that Asahi was the biggest (literally and metaphorically) softie in the castle.  
  
Suga handed the pastries off to Daichi with a finger to his lips, then crept across the room. There were a few stares and whispers from the younger students, but Asahi was too absorbed in his homework and didn’t notice until Suga yelled and leaped into his lap. He screamed like a banshee and his quill gained impressive altitude as it catapulted across the room. One or two of the little first years shrieked too, and had to be calmed down by a sixth-year Hufflepuff prefect. She tried to glare at Daichi -- who was, technically, also a prefect, and supposed to be against this sort of thing -- but her eyes were crinkled in amusement.  
  
“Sorry Asahi,” Suga said cheerfully, not at all actually sorry, and kissed his cheek to make up for the fright. Asahi was still clutching his chest dramatically, but he blushed a little and leaned his forehead into Suga’s shoulder.  
  
“Why do you always do that,” he groaned, and Suga just laughed and kissed him again.  
  
“Coward,” Daichi sighed from behind, and Asahi jumped again.  
  
“Aw, don’t be mean, Daichi. We have to take care of our favourite glass-hearted Hufflepuff. In fact,” Suga continued, and Asahi gulped at the glint in his eye -- “In fact, I think we should go upstairs and, mmm, make up for it. What do you think?” The last few words were whispered into Asahi’s ear, which was turning a progressively darker shade of red.  
  
Asahi’s response was to adjust his grip on Suga’s hips and to stand up. Suga laughed into his neck and wrapped his legs around Asahi’s waist. “I do like it when you do this.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
Daichi rolled his eyes and followed them up the stairs. He made sure the door was locked behind them as Asahi tossed Suga down onto the bed, and then he chucked one of the pastries so that it bounced off of Asahi’s cheek and plopped onto Suga’s stomach.  
  
“Way to kill the mood, Daichi.”  
  
Daichi crossed the room to lick the crumbs and icing off of Asahi’s face. “What was that?” he asked, feeling smug about Asahi's flustered expression.  
  
Suga grinned. “I like where this is going.”


	3. Kuroo & Oikawa, Yoga challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Minor injury

There was a bang and a loud curse and then a muffled yell -- “Fucking hell, Oikawa, since when do you ever lock your door?”  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” Oikawa called back cheerfully as he went to open the door, “but you should learn to respect other people’s spaces, Tetsu-chaaan. Not everyone is as forgiving as I am you know.”  
  
Kuroo rolled his eyes and shouldered past Oikawa into his room to flop languidly across his bed. Oikawa’s eye twitched, but instead of making it into a battle he sat primly on his desk chair instead, raising an eyebrow and waiting for Kuroo to speak.  
  
“Well?” he demanded when impatience got the better of him.  
  
Kuroo sighed dramatically. “Oikawa. I don’t know what to do.”  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
“It’s terrible.” Kuroo sighed again.  
  
Oikawa sat up a little straighter. “Tell me.”  
  
“It’s Kenma.”  
  
Oh no. Something was wrong with Kenma? Were they fighting? Was he sick? Oikawa started to get a little bit worried.  
  
“What happened? Is he okay?”  
  
“He’s a terrible best friend is what he is. He won’t do the Yoga Challenge with me! I told him I needed to do it for my YouTube channel and he won’t do it no matter what I try! I even bribed him with new games and ice cream and he still said no! Can you believe it? I’m heartbroken.” Kuroo pouted as if to exaggerate the emotional state of his heart.  
  
Oikawa clicked his tongue. “Kuroo you ass, I thought something was actually wrong!”  
  
“Something _is_ wrong! I really want to do the Yoga Challenge and Kenma is my Challenge Video Partner but he won’t do it with me. Stop looking at me with that judgey face. I need support. Offer me tea or something.”  
  
Instead, he got an almost-friendly punch to the gut. “You’re a manipulative bastard.”  
  
Kuroo laughed. “Takes one to know one, doesn’t it? And anyway, I’m obviously not manipulative _enough_ , if I couldn’t convince Kenma to do yoga with me.”  
  
“Before you start sulking again, maybe actually think about Kenma trying to do yoga first.”  
  
There was a brief silence, then Kuroo grinned sheepishly and threw an arm across his eyes. “That would be so _cute_ ,” he groaned.  
  
“That’s definitely not the point -- wait.” Oikawa paused, tapping a finger to his lip. “You’re right. He’d be adorable.”  
  
“I _know_ , right?”  
  
“Well,” Oikawa waved a hand dismissively, “It’s not surprising. Ken-chan’s always cute.”  
  
“Don’t call him that.”  
  
“You can’t stop me.”  
  
Kuroo stuck his tongue out petulantly, and Oikawa pulled down his eyelid in response.  
  
“But anyway. What’s the Yoga Challenge?”  
  
Kuroo suddenly broke into a grin like the Cheshire Cat and pulled his phone with some difficulty from his back pocket. “C’mere,” he said, holding out an arm, and Oikawa snuggled up next to him on the narrow bed with only minimal elbowing and kicking from both sides.  
  
A few minutes and a few videos later, Oikawa slammed the phone down on the bed.  
  
“Kuroo,” he said, eyes wide and shining, “we _have_ to do that.”  
  
“My friend, I thought you’d never ask.”  
  
\--  
  
“Hold still,” Kenma said softly, and Kuroo snickered at Oikawa’s wince. Oikawa held up his middle finger and Kuroo just laughed harder.   
  
“I told you that was a bad idea, Kuro,” Kenma reprimanded as he switched out the bloody towel for an icepack, Oikawa yelping when it touched his swollen nose. “I knew somebody was going to get hurt. Neither of you knows how to do yoga.”  
  
Kuroo shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s just Oikawa, right, so who cares.” Oikawa made an indignant noise and Kenma tried to glare but Kuroo caught the small upward twitch of his lips and he winked.   
  
“Did the video turn out well, at least?” Kenma asked, with a small but audible undercurrent of amusement.   
  
Kuroo laughed again. “It’s great. We look awesome. Super sexy.”  
  
Oikawa nodded, and above the bulk to the towel-wrapped icepack, the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Worth it,” he agreed in a nasally voice, and he held his hand up for a high-five.


	4. Hinata & Nishinoya, Pokemon AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: None

People always underestimated them.  
  
It was because they were small, and young-looking, and Hinata hated it, he couldn’t stand being treated like a child just because of his size. But then he’d met Nishinoya, and Nishinoya was a genius -- so Hinata was learning to temper his indignant reactions and follow his _senpai’s_ lead. Nishinoya was even smaller (to Hinata’s barely-contained glee) and he’d mastered the “I am just a new wide-eyed trainer who couldn’t possibly beat anyone in a battle wow I’m such an easy target” persona. Hinata wasn’t nearly as good at it yet, but getting better with every trainer they conned.  
  
And what a beautiful con it was.  
  
They’d find older, cocky trainers and bait them in with a gamble, the promise of money or food and pride for winning from the disadvantaged side of a two-against-one battle setup. And they’d start slow, Hinata would send out his Murkrow and Noya would send Voltorb, and they’d let it look like they were being beaten, act all dismayed and overwhelmed until Hinata’s favourite part, until he was bouncing on his toes and about to explode from excitement and they recalled their Pokémon and sent out Blaziken and Aggron and decimated their competition and ran off with their prizes.  
  
Sometimes their angry marks tried to chase them down, but, well, they’d never met a trainer or Pokémon yet that could outrun Luxray, and Hinata liked to slow their progress and mess with them by sending Sandslash to trip them up with strategically-placed potholes or tree branches.  
  
It was great. Good fun, good money, good training for their Pokémon (Karasu and Rolling Thunder had mischievous streaks longer than Hinata’s -- almost as long as Nishinoya’s -- and they loved faking out their opponents just as much as their trainers did. Blaziken and Aggron, for their parts, just liked to _win_ ).  
  
Someday, Sugawara had said (with a grin that showed he only half meant it), they were going to get their butts kicked and regret everything. Nishinoya had just laughed and patted Hinata heavily on the back and proclaimed that they were far too good to let such a thing happen.  
  
Unlike his friends, Suga knew when to quit. So he’d just shook his head indulgently and seen them off with a grin and a reminder and packs full of food that had been quickly augmented by the first cocksure trainer Hinata and Noya had happened to pass on the trail.  
  
Hinata took the warning a bit more seriously. But it hadn’t happened yet, and as they rode away on Luxray from the last battle, laughing until their sides hurt, he figured that even when the time came and someone tripped them up in their own hustle… well. It would still be worth it.


	5. Nishinoya/Tanaka, Hogwarts AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Swearing

Tanaka and Nishinoya did not meet on the Hogwarts Express.  
  
They did, however, meet directly afterwards, once they were Sorted, and they immediately bonded over mutual agreement on three subjects:  
  
First: Gryffindor was by far the coolest of the four houses and therefore, as the newest pair of Gryffindors, they were both automatically very cool, hell yeah, high five.  
  
Second: That prefect was so beautiful. Unbelievably gorgeous. Wow. Dibs. No, me. Yeah right.  
  
Third: Quidditch was, hands down, the coolest sport ever invented and the Beaters were, also hands down, the coolest players on the team, and I’m going to be a Beater one day, jinx, you owe me a Fizzing Whizbee.  
  
The natural conclusion to all of this was, of course, a childhood declaration of lifelong best-friendship, sealed with a bump of their fists, and by their third year they were well on their way to achieving that particular goal (to the chagrin of several of their professors), and imminently close to another.  
  
Noya would swear up and down that there was no feeling more satisfying than the crack of a Beater’s bat against a Bludger, and he whooped in pure excitement as he swung hard, connected, and sent a Bludger careening away across the Quidditch pitch. Tanaka cheered from the line-up of other hopefuls at the side of the field.  
  
“Well done, Nishinoya,” Sawamura called from where he hovered above, and Noya preened at the praise from his soon-to-be Captain. “Next!”  
  
Tanaka’s hit was a little bit off-centre, but just as strong, and he yelled out an apology to Azumane when the Bludger turned and _whumph_ ed into his stomach, to the amusement of the other auditioning players. Still, mishaps aside -- they were confident.  
  
“Like,” Noya said on the way back to the castle, broomstick over one shoulder, “the others weren’t _bad_  -- except that one kid -- but we were definitely the best Beaters. Lucky that the old Beaters were both in the same year, eh, Ryuu? Now we’ll get to play together.”  
  
Tanaka grinned and nodded and they fist-bumped.  
  
And (of course, they said), their confidence was well-deserved.  
  
“Congratulations, you two,” Sawamura told them a few evenings later, in the common room. “Welcome to the team.” He grinned, and Azumane gave a thumbs up, one hand covering his stomach, and Sugawara laughed, and Kiyoko nodded, and Noya and Tanaka nearly exploded with excitement. Sawamura had to summon a hasty spout of water to douse the fiery sparks that erupted unprompted from Tanaka’s wand.  
  
“We’re going to be a good team,” Azumane said, somewhat shyly.  
  
And they were. They didn’t quite manage to win the Cup -- thanks in no small part to the highly skilled Slytherin Seeker -- but still. It was one of the best teams Gryffindor had had in years, and they were a part of it.  
  
Their next few teams weren’t quite at the same level. It wasn’t until their seventh and last year that they actually managed, finally, to win the Cup. Everything came together that year -- their Keeper finally hit his stride, their Captain was a quiet but deadly force with a Quaffle, their Seeker was a genius, and Tanaka and Noya themselves were at the top of their game, their childhood passion and energy undiminished but with the near-seamless teamwork that came with seven years of concentrated, coordinated practice.  
  
And their Quidditch team wasn’t the only thing that came together that year.  
  
When they won, when Noya realized that Kageyama had the Snitch in his hand and Ennoshita’s sneaky goals had kept them far enough ahead that it wasn’t even a question -- the first thing he did was to fling his bat away and bolt for Tanaka. They collided, screaming, and slid out of the air in an uncoordinated heap.  
  
And this time, instead of bumping fists, Noya wrapped himself around Tanaka like the giant squid and Tanaka grabbed his face with both hands and they smashed their lips together in a kiss that was as rough and messy and loving as they always were.


	6. Tsukishima/Yamaguchi, Pacific Rim AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Kissing, misuse of giant robots
> 
> This is set in the same universe as [chapter 31](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7995565/chapters/26947440).

Yamaguchi is waiting on deck when Lunar Kozane eases back into her docking with a smooth hiss of hydraulics. He frowns; something sounds a little bit off. Something in the left leg, he thinks, there’s just the slightest hesitation of the joint and he can tell that it’s a mechanical issue, not a pilot issue, because the arms are moving in synchrony, just the way they’re supposed to. And the Tsukishimas are very good.  
  
He has the time to take a look at it. The brothers have to debrief before they can do anything else, simple patrol mission or no, so he has a few minutes, at least, and Yamaguchi doesn’t waste any more of that time. He’s strapped into a harness and rappelling down from Lunar’s ilium joint before Sugawara has even noticed the problem. Yamaguchi has an instinct for the machines, he’s come to realize, and he’s good at it. It had taken him longer than he liked to admit to get over the disappointment of not being selected for pilot training, but he’s finally hit his stride with the mechanics and really, this is just as good. Just as important to support from behind the scenes. And in hindsight, he’s not sure that he’d like being the focus of all the danger and glory, anyway, not now that he’s seen Tsukki at it. No, being a mechanic suits him just fine.  
  
And it also gets him access to all the inner workings and hidden crawlspaces in Lunar Kozane’s armour, all the secret little places that only the pilots and mechanics know about.  
  
The knee’s an easy fix, and Yamaguchi climbs eagerly back through the access port in the joint, scales the giant leg, and when he tucks himself into the little alcove at the inside of the Jaeger’s thigh, Kei is already there, still in his circuitry suit. He knows what that does to Yamaguchi, all the tight black mesh and glinting, exposed mechanical nerves, and Yamaguchi doesn’t even bother with a greeting. He just presses himself up against Kei, flush from thigh to chest, and kisses the knowing smirk right off of his face.  
  
“Tsukki,” he sighs into the kiss, and Kei’s hand tightens reflexively around his waist. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he quips, a grin dusting across his face.  
  
“Mn,” Kei says in reply, nosing at the hair that curls across the back of Yamaguchi’s neck, behind his hair. Yamaguchi shivers and presses closer. “Do we?”  
  
The little space isn’t really big enough for two people, and Yamaguchi can feel Lunar’s steel muscle cords against his back. Everything smells like motor oil and grease and sweat and Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi swears this must be the best place on Earth.  
  
“No.” He kisses Kei again, and again.


	7. Lev/Yaku, Dealing with a crush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Minor consent issues

“Aaaaugh, Yaku-san, I’m _dying_ , can’t we stop?”

Lev was sprawled dramatically on the gym floor, breathing hard, covered in sweat, and surrounded in a halo of volleyballs. Volleyballs he had failed to receive properly. Yaku quietly bemoaned his fate, having to teach and overconfident and incompetent beanpole to play volleyball, practically from the ground-up. This was not what he’d signed up for.

Okay, well, maybe he had volunteered to whip Lev into shape, but that was only because having a semi-regular on the team who sucked _that_ much was just embarrassing. Nekoma had a reputation to uphold.

Yep. That was it.

Yaku was tempted to go over and give Lev a good kick in the ribs and chuck a few more balls at him, but he looked so pathetic that Yaku decided to go easy on him. Just this once.

“Alright, alright, we’re done for the day.”

Lev cheered quietly, lifting his arms in celebration then letting them fall back to the floor with a wet splat.

“But you’re cleaning all this up,” Yaku added. Lev groaned but pushed himself to his feet and started corralling the balls.

Yaku watched briefly, then joined in. He was a good _senpai_ , after all. That was it. It had nothing to do with the way it made Lev grin at him, or the way that  _that_ made Yaku’s heart flip.

They cleaned up quickly, and Lev bounced out the door with a wave and a thrown out, “Seeya, Yaku-san!”

Yaku yelled after him, “Where was all that energy half an hour ago!?” and grinned when he heard Lev laugh in response.

He let the expression soften into something maybe a little fond. He was alone. Nobody would need to know.

The smile slipped when he heard muffled yelling. The words were unclear but one of the voices was definitely Lev’s, pitched loud and excited. He put on his best Scary _Senpai_ Face and headed for the disturbance.

He found Lev grinning down at Karasuno’s shrimpy number ten, looming over him even as HInata bounced up on the balls of his feet. Their faces were awfully close together, Yaku noticed, and something about that made him uneasy.

“Oi!” he barked, and Hinata made a small “eep!” kind of a noise and ducked down instinctively to hide behind Lev’s unnecessarily long legs.

Lev blinked at Yaku, his posture shifting from the cheerfully competitive stance he’d had with Hinata to something more guarded, defensive.

“Yes, Yaku-san?” he asked, careful, and the hesitation, faint as it was, made Yaku feel abruptly terrible.

He jerked his head in a “follow me” gesture. Lev obediently disengaged from Hinata (with a subdued but cheerful goodbye) and followed Yaku back to the gym.

“I thought we were done,” he whined.

“Shut up.”

Yaku’s emotions were a roiling, bubbling mess and he wasn’t quite sure what to do about it. He liked to think of himself as a pretty self-aware kind of guy -- he could recognize jealousy when he felt it.

The thing was… this was _Lev_. And Lev wasn’t like Kuroo, who was quick and clever and could read the affection behind their mutual bickering. And he wasn’t like Yamamoto, who was loud and hardheaded but who knew when to stop and listen and take things seriously,

This was determined, hapless, hopeless Haiba Lev, who took everything at face value and couldn’t be tactful to save his life.

Why, oh why did it have to be _Lev_?

Yaku would have to approach this carefully. Plan his course of attack, prepare for the potential reactions and responses.

Or, you know, fuck it.

The gym door clicked shut behind them, and Yaku grabbed Lev’s collar and yanked him roughly down into a kiss.

“Mmph!” Lev said, long arms failing.

Yaku stepped back, set his jaw, and crossed his arms. And he waited.

For a long few seconds, Lev just blinked. Yaku was just starting to panic a little when Lev suddenly grinned and pointed at him.

“That’s why you’re such a jerk!”

Of all the responses Yaku had considered -- that hadn’t even crossed his mind. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond so he settled for a quick kick to the leg.

Lev danced out of the way, giggled, and declared, “You liiiiike me!”

Yaku had a crush on an actual eleven-year-old, apparently. He couldn’t believe that this was his life.

“Shut up,” was his eloquent reply.

Lev stopped snickering abruptly and leaned down, eyes sharp and bright.

“Make me.”

So Yaku did.

 


	8. Kenma & Kuroo, Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Supernatural elements

Kuroo had always assumed that when his dragon finally hatched, it would be a frightening, fire-breathing beast of a thing -- he imagined giant fangs, maybe with venom, and huge, leathery wings, big enough to block out the sun. He imagined mighty roars and intimidating fierceness. He imagined himself riding the dragon into battle and his enemies quailing just at the sound of its name, which would, of course, be appropriately epic. Barothor or Galelean or Taketona. Lots of syllables, very medieval.  
  
Yes, Kuroo had had it all planned out for a very long time.  
  
So, of course, when the time came, all of his hopes and expectations were completely wrong.  
  
The egg hatched in the middle of the night with little fanfare. Kuroo supposed later that he should have taken that as his first warning. He simply woke up in the morning to find a small dragonling curled up in the incubator where his egg had been. It was about the size of a cat, maybe, all twisted in on itself until it resembled a pile of rocks more than it did a dragon. Or any living creature at all. Still. It wasn’t every day your dragon hatched, and Kuroo leaned over the incubator excitedly, waiting for the little dragonling to sense his presence and wake up and complete their Bond.  
  
And he waited.  
  
Kuroo liked to consider himself a patient sort of person, but after fifteen minutes he was twitchy and decidedly out of patience, and so he reached into the incubator and brushed the tip of his index finger down the pebbled skin.  
  
The baby dragon opened one golden eye, looked at him dismissively, and then rolled over and went back to sleep.  
  
“Hey,” Kuroo said, a little surprised. “Wake up.”  
  
Then the dragonling spoke for the very first time, in a quiet, raspy, but pleasant voice.  
  
“No,” it said.  
  
Kuroo stared at it. He was flabbergasted. This wasn’t what dragons were supposed to do. Everything he’d read said that newborn dragons were energetic and playful and eager to Bond… and yet here was this one, who didn’t even seem to care that he was there. He wasn’t quite sure what to do about it.  
  
As a matter of fact, he was a little hurt. “Don’t you want to Bond with me?”  
  
The dragonling peeked up at him, considering. Finally, it said. “We already are. From inside my egg.”  
  
Kuroo blinked. “Oh.”  
  
The dragonling shifted a little, stretched a leg, and then stretched its neck towards Kuroo. “I’m Kenma,” it said, and then, “You’re warm.”  
  
It sounded like a demand, but Kuroo wrapped a careful hand around it and it curled happily against his chest.  
  
It was so small, and warm, and he could feel its sleepy contentment. And that was all he needed.  
  
“We’re going to be together forever,” he whispered, and the dragon licked the palm of his hand and made a quiet, happy sound.


	9. Iwaizumi/Oikawa, Pokemon AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Minor injury

If there’s one thing in life that Hajime is looking forward to, it’s turning ten and starting his own adventure.  
  
Tooru still just wants to play sports, and Hajime calls him a little kid because even though he really likes sports, too, big kids and grown-ups are Pokemon trainers. And Hajime is very mature, Mama says so, and he really wants to be a Pokemon trainer.  
  
“I’ll be a trainer, too, I guess,” Tooru says, when Hajime talks about it, and the casual tone of his voice makes Hajime mad. Tooru doesn’t understand -- he already has his Elgyem, his very own Pokemon that his big sister caught for him. Hajime doesn’t have a big sister, and he doesn’t have a Pokemon. He’s going to get one, though. He’s not allowed to get a Pokedex or a Pokemon from Professor Juniper until he turns ten, but he got a bug net for his ninth birthday and bought three Pokeballs with his birthday money and he is going to go catch himself a Pokemon.  
  
It’s harder than he’d expected, he quickly realizes, when he’s exhausted and scraped up and the sun is setting on his first day on the hunt in the woods. He’d seen three Sewaddles and two Patrats and a Pidove, but they all got away from him. One of the Patrats had even run off with the Pokeball that Hajime threw at it, and Hajime had chased it, yelling, until he lost it in the tall grass.  
  
So he’s down to two Pokeballs.  
  
Still, he’s not deterred. He goes out into the woods every day, sometimes staying out for hours, or the entire day, in his dogged pursuit of his own Pokemon.  
  
You can’t get anything in life without hard work. That’s what Mama always says.  
  
Hajime thinks his Mama is a very smart lady, but he also sometimes wonders if she forgets about Tooru. The only thing Tooru worked hard at was volleyball. And he already had a Pokemon.  
  
“Iwa-chaaaan,” Tooru complains, having followed Hajime out into the woods one day, “can’t you come and play volleyball with me? This is boring!”  
  
“Nobody told you to come,” Hajime says, as gruffly as he can. Tooru whines.   
  
“But it’s _boring_ without you!”  
  
“I have to catch a Pokemon.”  
  
Tooru squats next to a pile of rotting leaves and pokes at them with a stick, pouting dramatically. “Your birthday is soon, why can’t you just wait until you can get one from Professor Juniper?”  
  
Tooru doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand, and so Hajime doesn’t answer.  
  
Suddenly, Tooru shrieks and falls backwards, scrabbling on the ground. A pudgy, magenta Pokemon hisses at him from where he’s disturbed its hiding place among the leaves. It rears up on its stubby legs and clacks its pincers aggressively. Tooru shrieks again.  
  
“Iwa-chan! Do something! Get it! Ewww!”  
  
Hajime gasps and brings his net down on the Pokemon. It screeches, and Hajime and Tooru both wince at the grating sound. Hajime holds the net down with both hands and it doesn’t escape.  
  
Tooru is jumping up and down beside Hajime. “Throw a Pokeball at it! Throw a Pokeball, Iwa-chan!”  
  
Hajime fumbles for a Pokeball from his pocket, and his one-handed grip isn’t enough to keep the Pokemon subdued but Tooru leaps into action, adding his own strength to Hajime’s, and together they manage to keep the Pokemon trapped until Hajime gets the Pokeball out of his pocket and throws it.  
  
It wiggles, and they watch it together, panting. The net droops, forgotten. Hajime’s entire body is tense, his entire focus narrowed to that one wobbling Pokeball. It shakes once more, then goes still. There’s a faint click.  
  
Hajime just stares at it.  
  
Tooru whoops and throws his arms around Hajime’s neck. “You did it! You did it, Iwa-chan, you caught your first Pokemon!”  
  
Hajime bends over and picks up the Pokeball in a shaky hand and stares at it some more. He can’t believe it. After days and days in the woods… he finally caught a Pokemon. Tooru hugs him again. Hajime finally smiles, and it breaks across his entire face, spreading wide until his cheeks hurt with the force of it.  
  
“I did it,” he says, full of awe and excitement. “I caught a Venipede!”  
  
And oh, he thinks, staring at the Pokeball in his hands, the Pokeball that holds _his very own Pokemon_ , now he _really_ can’t wait to turn ten.


	10. Nishinoya & 2nd years, Rolling Thunder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Super powers

“Well? What do you think?”  
  
“So cool, Noya-san!”  
  
“We’re doomed.”  
  
Ennoshita’s declaration was met with solemn nods from both Narita and Kinoshita, and not even a speck of recognition or acknowledgement from either Tanaka or Nishinoya. They were still far too excited by Noya’s newly-discovered “super powers” to pay attention to reason.  
  
Although, Ennoshita supposed, “reason” sort of went out the window three weeks ago, when Noya’d been zapped in a freak accident with the electric eel at the local aquarium. The eel had stopped his heart, the paramedics had restarted it, and after a tense few days in the hospital, Noya was, shockingly, perfectly fine and cheerfully bossing around a doting Tanaka.  
  
And zapping everyone. And everything.  
  
The first sign that something was up was Noya’s hair -- it stood up on its own. Even when wet. Noya was absolutely thrilled with this development, which Ennoshita supposed made sense. After all, Noya did go through a jar of extreme hold hair gel every fortnight, trying to maintain his signature look. He was going to be saving a lot of money. His hair did crackle a bit, now, which was… concerning.  
  
In hindsight, they should have taken the crackling hair as a warning.  
  
Ennoshita was still nursing a burn wound from when he’d reached out to clasp Noya’s shoulder in fraternal affection and been roundly shocked for his troubles.  
  
And of course, being Noya and Tanaka, instead of being alarmed (once Ennoshita’s tingling hand was taken care of), they immediately began brainstorming progressively more ridiculous ways to harness Noya’s new Hero Powers and to Use Them For The Forces Of Good.  
  
Apparently, the culmination of that was the decision for Noya to become a real-life superhero, complete with a spandex bodysuit, a mask, and a “secret identity.”  
  
The bodysuit had been purchased and modified by Sugawara, who found the entire situation completely hilarious and who was surprisingly handy with a sewing machine and a paintbrush. It did look pretty cool, Ennoshita had to admit, with the lightning and the crow motifs.  
  
“I should join the Earth Defense Force!” Noya declared loudly and struck a pose.  
  
Tanaka cheered, then laughed. “Does that even exist?”  
  
Unshaken, Noya just shrugged. “Maybe _I’ll_ be the Earth Defense Force.”  
  
“We’re doomed,” Ennoshita repeated.  
  
This time, Noya reacted, and flicked a little jolt of static that made Ennoshita jump and yelp.  
  
“Don’t be a wet blanket, Chikara.”  
  
“Don’t stand near a wet blanket,” Ennoshita retorted, to giggles.  
  
“I need a superhero name,” Noya decided, and he tapped his chin thoughtfully.  
  
“Spikeyhead,” Kinoshita suggested, and failed to dodge an indignant zap.  
  
“Static Crow?”  
  
“Lightning, uh, Ball?”  
  
“Pikachu?”  
  
Ennoshita stepped forward and raised his hands in a show of bravado -- and somehow it worked. The other four fell silent and looked over at him. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said, “you’re missing the obvious. Clearly, he should call himself ‘Rolling Thunder’.”  
  
There was a beat, and then Tanaka burst out laughing and Noya whooped and leaped up to grab Ennoshita in an awkward, bruising headlock.  
  
“You’re a genius, Chikara!” he yelled.  
  
“I try,” Ennoshita said dryly. Still, he was secretly -- _secretly_ \-- amused. Then -- “Ouch! Noya, stop zapping me!”


	11. Asahi/Suga, Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Mild angst

Somehow, it always caught people off-guard when they learned that Asahi and Sugawara were dating. And had been, in fact, since the end part of their first year. They’d had their false starts and ups and downs, like any young couple, but by the time they were in their third year of high school and second year of dating, it had smoothed out into something easy and comfortable.

Which wasn’t to say they didn’t still hit bumps along the way.

Asahi noticed it in Suga’s toss, during that first game back when he’d rejoined the volleyball team and they’d played together with the Neighbourhood Association team. Just the slightest bit of tension in the ball. It was still a good toss, high and away from the net, just the way he liked it, but. Something was off.

He thought that Suga might be angry with him. He hadn’t said anything to that effect, had mostly just seemed sad and confused that Asahi didn’t feel like he could come back, but still, Asahi wondered.

Asahi was on the team again, though, and Suga was as cheerful as ever, and outwardly, it seemed like everything was back to normal. They still walked home together after practice, and Suga still teamed up with Daichi to tease him, and they still got together at Asahi’s place on the weekends, because his brothers were gone to university and his mother worked a lot and they could almost always get the house to themselves. Everything seemed normal, and Asahi relaxed back into their comfortable rhythm.

It wasn’t until the next time Suga set for them in a match that Asahi realized. The toss was still high and away and it was still… tense. Asahi reflexively slammed the ball to the floor, but he was distracted by the toss and he slipped and fell on his landing, tumbling down with a surprised “oof!”

He heard a familiar tinkle of laughter, and then Suga’s hand was in front of him, and Suga’s voice was saying, “Get up, you big goof.”

Asahi used the offered hand to pull himself to his feet, but he didn’t let go, and tightened his own grip when Suga tried to pull away.

“Um, Asahi? Can I have that back?”

“Suga,” Asahi burst out, a little louder than he’d meant to, and Suga blinked and leaned back in surprise. He faltered, and squeezed Suga’s hand again. “I, um. I’m sorry.”

“For… falling?”

Asahi shook his head helplessly. Suga looked at him quietly for a long moment. Then he squeezed Asahi’s hand, and patted his arm, and said, in a soft voice, “Okay.”

 


	12. Kenma/Kuroo, Umbrella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: None

“Oh.”  
  
Kenma stared out the open door of the gym, one foot half-raised as if to step outside -- except he’d been frozen like that for about half a minute, staring into the rain. His phone hung loosely in one hand; the other rested against the wall.  
  
“Whassup?” Yamamoto asked, coming up behind Kenma and peering curiously out the door.   
  
“I forgot my umbrella,” Kenma murmured. Yamamoto laughed, loud and harsh, and Kenma flinched when Yamamoto gave him a friendly whack on the back.  
  
“Just run,” he suggested. Kenma didn’t respond, but the way his jaw tightened conveyed his opinion of that idea quite readily. Yamamoto just laughed at him again and took his own advice, jogging out into the rain with a “Seeya tomorrow, Kenma!” thrown over his shoulder.  
  
Kenma just stood in the doorway, considering his options. He could walk home in the rain. Or run, like Yamamoto’d suggested. But he didn’t particularly want to get wet, not if he didn’t have to. So he could wait until the rain let up. He glanced at the puddles forming in the schoolyard. It looked like the kind of rain that settled in and stayed for a while, not the crashing, quick-burning thunderstorms that happened in the summer. There was no telling how long the rain would go on.  
  
“Lucky for you, I brought my umbrella,” Kuroo’s voice said from behind Kenma, as if he could read Kenma’s mind.  
  
Honestly, such a thing wouldn’t really surprise Kenma at this point.  
  
Kuroo opened the umbrella over the both of them, before Kenma had bothered to answer verbally. The way Kenma tucked himself against Kuroo’s side was answer enough.  
  
“All aboard the Kuroo express,” he announced cheerily, and Kenma rolled his eyes. He didn’t protest, though, when Kuroo wrapped the arm not holding the umbrella around his shoulders.  
  
They were about a block and a half from the school when Kuroo stopped abruptly, and Kenma barely managed to stop before he stepped out of the relative dryness under the umbrella.  
  
“Damn,” Kuroo muttered as he patted his front pocket. “Forgot my keys. Here --” he thrust the umbrella into Kenma’s hands “--take this. I’ll be right back.” And with that, he skipped out into the rain and ran back towards the school.  
  
Kenma stood silently for a few minutes, umbrella in one hand and phone in the other, until Kuroo returned, keys in hand, and ducked back under the umbrella with a triumphant smirk. He shook out his wet hair like a dog and laughed when Kenma hunched his shoulders and turned his face away from the water droplets.  
  
“I would have come back with you,” Kenma said.  
  
“Yeah, I know. I don’t mind the rain, though.”  
  
Kenma fidgeted with the handle of the umbrella and said nothing.


	13. Kenma/Kuroo, Lev's apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: None

When Kuroo comes over later that night, the first thing he does, upon walking without knocking into Kenma’s bedroom, is to hold out a wrapped package. Kenma is immediately both excited and suspicious. Excited because, given the shape of the package, and its intended recipient, it can only be a new game for his POP. But he also knows Kuroo, and knows that as much as Kuroo likes to dote on him, new games are saved for special occasion -- holidays and bribes. It’s not Kenma’s birthday and it’s not New Year’s. He eyes Kuroo and the cheerful silver bow warily.  
  
“It’s from Lev,” Kuroo says, which does absolutely nothing to alleviate Kenma’s suspicions. “He says, and I quote, ‘I’m really really really really sorry, Kenma-san!’ Four ‘really’s. I counted. He sounded very sincere.” He shakes the box lightly at Kenma.   
  
Kenma had finished his most recent game just that morning. As a result, he’s been wondering, since he got home, what to do for the evening. He’d considered restarting an old game, or EV training a competitive team on Pokémon OmegaRuby, but neither idea really caught his interest.   
  
He wants that new game.  
  
Kenma reaches with eager fingers and pulls the box out of Kuroo’s grasp, ignoring the way Kuroo laughs at his reaction, and he unwraps it hastily, flipping it to read the title. He freezes.  
  
“Well well, look at that,” Kuroo drawls, reading the title over Kenma’s shoulder. “Isn’t that the new one you’ve been looking forward to?”  
  
It is. Kenma’s been excited about it for months. It only came out three days previous and between volleyball practice and Kenma’s distaste for line-ups and crowds, he hasn’t managed to get his hands on a copy yet.  
  
“That’s it! That’s the new-video-game face!” Kuroo crows, and he whips out his phone and snaps a picture before Kenma can scowl at him or turn his head away.  
  
“Stop it, Kuro. Delete that.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Kenma ignores him in favour of opening the box. The plastic casing opens with a very satisfying crackle and Kenma’s excitement starts to bubble over. He plugs the game into his console, curls his toes against his blankets, and starts to play.  
  
At some point, Kuroo wraps himself around Kenma’s back and tangles their feet together. He rests his chin on Kenma’s shoulder, and watches him play.  
  
“You seem happy.” His chest vibrates against Kenma’s shoulders.  
  
Without taking his eyes off of the little screen, Kenma says, “I’m still mad at Lev.”  
  
Kuroo laughs and kisses his neck.


	14. Bokuto/Kuroo, Pyjamas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Implied sexual content

_saw this and thought of u....PLS SEND ME PICS_  
  
Kuroo grinned at the note and tore into the package with relish. He laughed out loud when the gift tumbled into his lap -- a pair of pyjamas, alarmingly red, decorated with black cartoon cats in a variety of saucy positions. They were flannel, starched and stiff, and the blazer-style shirt had little black cats heads for buttons, because of course it would. Kuroo loved it immediately and he slipped it on over his t-shirt.   
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡ ]  
[1:34 p.m.]  
Bo, these are hilarious  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:35 p.m.]  
U GOT MY PACKAGEe?!!!?!1  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[1:35 p.m.]  
you know it  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[1:35 p.m.]  
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1.35 p.m.]  
LOLOLOLOL  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[1:36 p.m.]  
Where did you get these  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:36 p.m.]  
bro internet duh  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:36 p.m.]  
SEND APIC!!!  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[1:37 p.m.]  
[1 file(s) attached]  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:37 p.m.]  
OMG  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:37 p.m.]  
NICE DICKFACE  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:37 p.m.]  
*****DUCKFACE FKUC  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[1:37 p.m.]  
oh my god bokuto  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[1:37 p.m.]  
you want dickface huh?  
[1 file(s) attached]  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:38 p.m.]  
Well hello there  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[1:38 p.m.]  
that certianly is the face u make when u touch a dick  
  
Kuroo grinned fondly at his phone, then turned his attention back to the pyjamas. His intention was to take a closer look at the various poses the cats were printed in -- he had already seen one giving the finger, which was hilarious -- but something caught his eye.  
“No fuckin’ way,” he muttered to himself.  
  
[Incoming call: Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
  
 _”Yo yo my bro!”_  
  
“Bokuto,” Kuroo said into the phone, in the most serious voice he could muster up while wearing a grin that stretched so wide it made his cheeks hurt. “Are these… _footie pyjamas_?”  
  
Bokuto’s cackle was answer enough. “ _Aren’t they dope? I was so excited when I saw them._ ”  
  
“How did you even find these?”  
  
“ _I told you, internet!_ ”  
  
“Yeah, but like… _how_ …”  
  
Bokuto laughed again. “ _So you like ‘em?_ ”  
  
Kuroo nodded, even though Bokuto couldn’t see him. “Yeah, they’re awesome. I love them, Bo.”  
  
“ _Good. ‘Cause I got a matching pair for me, too. Only get this -- they’re yellow and have great horned owls!_ ”  
  
“Dude. Send a pic.”  
  
“ _Okay! Hold on, lemme go get changed into them._ ”  
  
“Send a pic of that, too.”  
  
Another laugh.  
  
[Dumb Owl]  
[2:02 p.m.]  
[2 file(s) attached]  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[2:03 p.m.]  
nice   
  
[Dumb Owl Pyjamas]  
[2:03 p.m.]  
lol which one  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[2:03 p.m.]  
both obviously  
  
[Dumb Owl Pyjamas]  
[2:03 p.m.]  
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[2:03 p.m.]  
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
[Dumb Owl Pyjamas]  
[2:03 p.m.]  
<3  
  
[Kuroo ♡ ♡]  
[2:03 p.m.]  
<3


	15. Asahi/Nishinoya, Period cramps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Cisswap, menstruation

Asahi’s lying in a half-aware daze of pain, and there’s a ringing in her ears and spinning behind her eyelids that makes her feel dizzy and nauseous.  
  
No, wait.  
  
She bolts upright and stumbles across the hallway. The bathroom door hits the wall with a bang, and she just barely makes it to the toilet on shaky legs before she collapses to her knees and throws up, one arm wrapped around her abdomen and the other clutching the toilet seat in a clammy grip.   
  
She spits, groans, and puts the lid down before she flushes the toilet. The porcelain is cool and she rests her cheek against it. It feels good. The rest of her feels like it’s burning.   
  
When she looks down at herself, she realizes that she really is burnt -- there’s an angry stripe of red across her lower belly, rough and blistering. She’s burned herself with her heating pad. It’s not the first time this has happened, either; between superficial burns to her skin and the relentless, twisting pain of menstrual cramps, she’ll take the burns. Every time.  
  
Not that the heat is really helping at this point, anyway.  
  
Asahi deliberates between just laying down on the tile floor and waiting for death, or trying to crawl all the way back across the hallway to her bed. Then her uterus gives a particularly strong spasm and she curls around it with a whimper. Floor it is, then.  
  
She has no idea how much time has passed, by the time she musters enough energy and the acute aching in her abdomen lessens enough that she can limp back to bed like a kicked dog. It felt like hours, days, but Asahi knows that sometimes seconds feel like hours, when she’s in pain and can’t do anything to fix it.  
  
Asahi realizes, blearily, that there’s a paper bag on her nightstand. She doesn’t think it was there before -- whenever _before_ was. There’s a note.  
  
 _I’ll be back soon! Don’t push yourself too hard._  
  
And then, as if that wasn’t enough to have Asahi’s stomach tingling in a different kind of way than the nausea, it follows with, _Feel better. I love you!! xox <3_.  
  
The bag is full and rattles in a way that makes Asahi’s spirits perk up hopefully. Sure enough, when she dumps it onto the bed, a bottle of painkillers spills out -- followed by a box of a different brand, and another, smaller bottle of still another brand.  
  
She reads the instructions quickly, and dry-swallows one of each kind. Thus fortified, she picks through the other offerings -- a box of tampons, one of extra-absorbent-extra-long pads, two packages of gummy candies, and six chocolate bars, as well as a volleyball magazine and a new sports headband.  
  
There’s a lump in her throat that has nothing to do with the pills as she fishes her phone out from the tangle of blankets on her bed and opens up her messaging app with shaky fingers.  
  
 _I love you_ , she sends to Nishinoya. It seems woefully inadequate; her body still feels like it’s trying to kill her in the most dramatic and painful of ways, but she feels better already, and it’s not all just the painkillers.  
  
Her phone blips three times in rapid succession.  
  
 _AWWWWWW! I luv u 2 babe <3 <3 <3_  
  
 _did u get my package? do u feel better_  
  
 _i cn give u a back massage when i get home just hang in there ok <3_


	16. Bokuto/Kuroo, Laundry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Swearing

“Bokuto.”  
  
“Yeah man?”  
  
“Look. You know I love you, right? But you’ve been wearing that shirt for three days and if you don’t change it I am going to exile you.”  
  
Bokuto looked mildly affronted at the declaration. “Dude, it’s fine, I haven’t gotten it dirty yet!”  
  
Across the room, Kuroo wrinkled his nose. “You wore it running yesterday! I can _smell you_ from over here.”  
  
Bokuto pouted. “It’s not _that_ bad!” As if to demonstrate, he raised an arm and sniffed at his armpit. And abruptly turned green.  
  
“You know,” he added faintly, “you might have a point.” He tugged the shirt over his head (Kuroo took a moment to admire the view) and threw it vaguely in the direction of his bedroom. Then he looked at Kuroo with a very familiar expression.  
  
“No,” Kuroo said. “Whatever it is, no.”  
  
“C’moooon. Can I borrow a shirt?”  
  
“What the hell, Bo, wear your own shirt!”  
  
“But mine are all dirty!”  
  
“So wash them!”  
  
“I don’t know how!”  
  
There was a silence, and then a slow grin started to spread across Kuroo’s face. Bokuto’s turned pink in a preemptive response.  
  
“What’s this, what’s this,” Kuroo started.  
  
Bokuto screeched. “Don’t you use your scheming captain voice on me!”  
  
Kuroo continued, undeterred. “You mean to tell me that Bokuto Koutarou, top-five spiker extraordinaire and grown-ass man --”  
  
“I’m only eighteen.”  
  
“-- has never washed his own clothes in his entire life?”  
  
“...shut up.”  
  
Kuroo drew himself up to his full height, clasped a hand on Bokuto’s shoulder, close his eyes, and shook his head slowly. “Dude. That’s so sad.”  
  
Bokuto tried to elbow him but Kuroo dodged it and landed a loud kiss on Bokuto’s cheek. “Luckily for you, in addition to being totally sexy, your boyfriend is generous and kind and knows how to do laundry, and will --”  
  
“Do it for me?” Bokuto broke in hopefully.  
  
“Absolutely not. But I’ll teach you to do it yourself. You manchild.”  
  
“Rude.”  
  
“You love me.”  
  
“Ugh.”  
  
*  
  
“I still can’t believe you made it all the way to university without knowing how to do laundry,” Kuroo said a few hours later, muffling his renewed burst of laughter in Bokuto’s freshly-washed shirt. It smelled like Kuroo’s own laundry detergent mixed with the overly-musky scent of Bokuto’s favourite deodorant and the slightly salty one of Bokuto’s skin, and overall Kuroo was quite pleased with the effect.  
  
Bokuto pinched his side, and Kuroo yelped. “You can stop making fun of me any time now,” he groused. “And unlike _someone_ , at least I make the bed in the mornings. Uh. Sometimes.”   
  
Kuroo shrugged. The sheets rustled under his shoulders. “It’s just gonna get messed up again, what’s the point.”  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
“But you know.” Something changed in Kuroo’s voice, getting deeper and slyer and sending blood rushing around Bokuto’s body. “I think I liked you better earlier. Without your shirt.”  
  
Bokuto grinned, excitement flashing through him. “Oh yeah?”  
  
“Mmm. Let’s… revisit that.”  
  
“Is this gonna happen every time we do laundry?”  
  
“Bo. Stop ruining the moment and take your shirt off.”


	17. Tsukishima/Yamaguchi, Hogwarts AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: None

_Dear Mr. Tsukishima,  
  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.  
  
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July._  
  
“I’ve got one, too,” Tadashi says, when he sees Kei’s letter, a hint of surprise in his voice. “I didn’t know you were magic, though, Tsukki.”  
  
“Don’t be stupid. Magic isn’t real.” Kei says the words flippantly, dismissively, but the letter is clenched in a white-knuckled grip, bruising the parchment with a thumbprint crease that he’ll try and fail to smooth out later.   
  
Tadashi gives him an odd look. “Of course it is. Did you think I was playing pretend the whole time?”  
  
Kei wants to make a snappy comeback, but he can’t because, really, he sort of did. It didn’t explain that time Tadashi somehow managed to knock out five bullies without so much as a bruise -- or a movement from a frightened, huddled ball. It didn’t explain the way Tadashi’s action figures would move around on their own when they played, always out of the corner of Kei’s eyes but happening nonetheless, he _knew_ it was happening. But still. Magic isn’t real. It couldn’t possibly be real.  
  
Even if Kei is starting to doubt the truth of that.  
  
Tadashi is grinning at him, sharp and knowing, and Kei feels his face flush. “Shut up,” he says. And then, because he’s read the letter so many times now that he’s learned it by rote, he asks as casually as he can manage, “what do you think they mean about the owl?”

  
Tadashi’s eyes light up, and he grabs Kei’s wrist and starts to drag him down the street. As they go, he babbles; “Oh Tsukki, I have so much to tell you now that you’re not just a Muggle! You can meet Crow, he’s not actually a crow, he’s a sooty owl, he’s my mum’s, he carries our letters for us… and I can tell you about Hogwarts! Well, I haven’t actually been there, but mum went, she’s a witch, she told me about it and said I’d get to go when I turned eleven and that I wasn’t to tell anyone because Muggles aren’t allowed to know. So that’s why I couldn’t tell you, even though I sort of did. Sorry, Tsukki. But you’re magic, too! Oh, maybe you can come to Diagon Alley with us, since your parents are both Muggles and all... ”  
  
There’s a jumble of sounds Kei has never heard before mixed up in Tadashi’s happy chatter, things that sound like words but aren’t, even though Tadashi says them with such confidence. It’s all a joke. It’s a stupid, elaborate joke, and magic isn’t real. Magic is not real. He repeats it in his mind like a mantra, refusing to get his hopes up because _what if_...  
  
Kei almost manages to convince himself, until a brick wall unfolds in front of his very eyes and Tadashi grins wide and says “Welcome to Diagon Alley, Tsukki,” and he steps into a whole new world.


	18. Kenma/Yamamoto, Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Mild angst

“So, yeah.” The air is heavy after Yamamoto’s confession. The weight of expectation, and hope, and fear hangs around him, and he straightens his shoulders against it. He’s always been strong -- this is a weight he can carry.  
  
Kenma, in contrast, hunches down, hair flipping forward as he ducks his head against his shoulders and his thumbs fidget against his pockets. Yamamoto feels a momentary pang of guilt. He hates it when Kenma shrinks under metaphorical burdens either real or imagined, hates it still more when it’s his own fault. He trips over his own words in an attempt to take it back, take some of the heaviness of the moment back on himself.  
  
“I don’t expect you to feel the same way, Kenma, I, I just -- I just needed you to know. I’ve been sittin’ on this for a long time. It’s like,” he gestures at his chest, at his heart, callused fingertips catching in the rough fabric of his sweater. “It’s real heavy.”  
  
The uncertainty is far heavier than anything else. The hope. It’s getting harder and harder to shoulder until Yamamoto doesn’t think he can take it anymore. He knows that Kenma doesn’t return his feelings, he’s sure of that, but every time, he wonders… _maybe_...  
  
Hope hurts. The rest is bearable.   
  
“Tora,” Kenma says, voice quiet, hesitant, but still confident in its delivery. “I don’t feel the same way.”  
  
And like that, Yamamoto feels a shift -- a release from the crushing pressure of forlorn hope, but replaced with the sharp, stinging weight of rejection. He babbles, hands akimbo, trying to balance.  
  
“Yeah yeah, I didn’t figure, just, had to say it, ya know? Just had to make sure. I didn’t wanna make things weird with us -- and we’re good, right, this is all good still?” Kenma nods, watching him with sharp eyes. Yamamoto mimics the nod, feels like he should stop talking. Feels like the world is bottoming out around him and pulling him down. His mouth keeps speaking and he’s not even sure what it’s saying anymore. “Yeah, okay, good. ‘Cause I didn’t think you’d feel the same, but man. I had to know for sure, ya know? Didn’t wanna spend my whole life wonderin’. But I’ve been scared, ya know, ‘cause like, we’re friends. Didn’t wanna screw that up either. But I figured I... I’d rather take the chance than regret not knowing.”  
  
He comes to an abrupt stop, ears burning, chest heaving.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Kenma says. An apology, and an understanding.  
  
The space between them feels wide, but Yamamoto reaches across it anyway. He places a hand on Kenma’s shoulder, and he feels lighter. Like something’s been lifted. “Nah.” He pulls forward, pushing the boundary, and Kenma meets him partway, leaning into the touch and trading one of his own, a light, friendly jab to the side. It’s friendly, open, comfortable, and even though it’s not what he _wants_ in his heart and bones and soul, he knows, now. Yamamoto feels like he’s floating.


	19. Bokuto/Kuroo, Birthday date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Implied sexual content

_”I don’t know what to get him!”_  
  
Kenma sighs, softly enough that the sound isn’t picked up by the mouthpiece of his cell phone. “I’m not the one dating him,” he says, because apparently that’s his line in this conversation -- the same one they’ve have three times in the four days since Kuroo called in a panic Monday night because he realized he had no clue what to get his boyfriend for his birthday.  
  
“Have you e-mailed Akaashi yet?” Kenma asks -- the next line in the script.  
  
Kuroo makes a disgruntled noise into his phone and Kenma can easily picture him running a hand through his unruly hair, pacing around his little dorm room on socked feet.  
  
 _”No. Asking for help is admitting defeat.”_  
  
“Then stop calling me.”  
  
 _”Kenmaaaaa!”_  
  
Kenma sighs again, louder, this time, so Kuroo’s sure to hear it. “Get him something with an owl.”  
  
 _”Yeah, but like, I got him that owl water bottle last week. And boxers a month ago. That’s not_ special _enough. It’s our first birthday together! I have to set a precedent, here. It’s gotta be good.”_  
  
So anything volleyball-related is probably out too, then. Unless -- “Bribe Akaashi into coming to set for him,” Kenma suggests, as he wedges the phone against his shoulder and picks up his POP.  
  
 _”Dude, no, I can’t get my boyfriend another guy for his birthday. That’s just wrong.”_ Kuroo sounds so genuinely affronted that Kenma finds himself smiling, and he has to readjust the phone against his cheek.  
  
They sit in silence for a while -- comfortable, as always, even with the new distance of university and the faint air of frustration between them -- until Kuroo makes a disconsolate noise and says, _”I’m the worst boyfriend ever.”_  
  
Kenma just hums, and Kuroo squawks.  
  
*  
  
And that is how, come Saturday night, Kuroo still has yet to find a suitable gift. He resolves, instead, to treat Bokuto the The Most Awesome Birthday Date Ever, complete with ignoring their homework, extra volleyball practice, Korean barbeque, and a few energetic hours in Kuroo’s bed.  
  
He still feels intensely guilty about the lack of an actual gift, despite Bokuto’s extemporizing on what a great birthday he’s had, and it finally bursts out of him when they’re taking a break and snuggling in a tangle of bedsheets.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he blurts, and Bokuto shifts to blink at him with big eyes.  
  
“For what? This is great.”  
  
Kuroo gives into an impulse to kiss the underside of Bokuto’s jaw, and Bokuto practically purrs, tilting his head back and letting his eyes fall half-shut. “For not getting you a present.”  
  
“What? Dude, no, don’t worry about it.”  
  
But Kuroo does worry about it. “I just, nothing seemed special enough. And I love you, a lot, so I wanted to get -- Bo?” he interrupts himself, because Bokuto’s just made a sound like a squashed bird.  
  
His voice is small but high and eager when he says, “Do you really?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
“You know,” Bokuto waves an arm, narrowly avoiding slapping Kuroo’s chin. “Love me?”  
  
“Oh.” Kuroo catches the flailing hand and squeezes it. “Yeah. Of course I do.”  
  
He’s about to say something else, but then Bokuto rolls bodily on top of him and squashes their mouths together for a hard, wet kiss. He pulls back, just a bit, so their noses touch, and Kuroo feels the words against his lips and in his heart when Bokuto giddily says, “That’s all I wanted.”


	20. Bokuto/Kenma, Meeting again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Swearing

“Holy shit! I know you!”  
  
Kenma barely even glanced up from his phone, his fingers pausing for a bare second before his eyes flicked down and he resumed his tapping. “Hi, Bokuto,” he said, almost inflectionless.   
  
Bokuto made a sound like a startled bird, and then he was running and Kenma barely had time to brace himself before Bokuto wrapped arms around his waist and lifted him off of his feet and laughed into his chest. Kenma’s grip on his phone tightened in instinctive alarm, but he couldn’t help the faint upward twitch of his lips.  
  
“I can’t believe you’re here! I totally thought you were gonna follow Kuroo to Kyoto! You gonna play volleyball? The team’s really good but the setter just graduated and we could definitely use you, c’mon Kenma, you need to come be my setter!”  
  
Still squeezed against Bokuto’s torso, Kenma steadied himself with one hand on Bokuto’s shoulder and bopped him on the top of the head with the other. “I’m not playing volleyball anymore,” he said. “Put me down.” Pouting, Bokuto did. He kept a hand firm on Kenma’s shoulder, though, and to Kenma’s slight surprise… he really didn’t mind it.  
  
“Aww, c’mon Kenma!”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Please?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Pleeeease?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“At least come watch us practice?”  
  
Kenma looked up at him calculatingly. “Buy me dessert after.”  
  
Bokuto grinned, sharp and wide. “What, like a date?”  
  
Kenma’s answering shrug was noncommittal at best, but Bokuto gleefully took it as confirmation. “I’ll text you the deets later, then, oh, can I have your number? Yeah yeah, this is gonna be great! Oh man, I can’t believe you’re at the same university as me, so cool, we’re gonna have so much fun, I can show you around and stuff once you’re done with this orientation stuff and like, we can take the train home together at holidays and, and -- and man. I’m so psyched you’re here. That’s awesome. What’re the odds, huh?”  
  
(The answer was: fairly good, when Kuroo was involved. Kenma has an e-mail saved on his phone with an attachment and a simple message saying, “I know how you feel about him, here’s the university he’s going to, good luck, you have my blessing.”)  
  
*  
  
[Kuroo]: Yo yo yo Bo, how’s year 2 treating ya so far?  
[Bokuto]: DUDE  
[Bokuto]: DID U NO KENMA WAS COMNG HERE  
[Kuroo]: lol yeah I did  
[Bokuto]: HE CAME 2 MY VBOL PRAC  
[Bokuto]: HES ACTUALLY RLLY CUTE WTF  
[Bokuto]: WERE U AWARE OF DIS  
[Kuroo]: lololololol  
[Kuroo]: i’d noticed, yeah  
  
*  
  
[Kuroo]: so?  
[Kenma]: he bought me apple pie  
[Kuroo]: you’re welcome  
[Kuroo]: ;)


	21. Bokuto/Kuroo, Zombies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M  
> Tags: Zombies, injury, illness, guns, implied suicidal ideation

This is hell.  
  
That’s all Bokuto can think, huddled on the grimy floor of a burnt-out department building, barricaded in an old drug store, listening to the moans and growls and crashes from outside. A hastily overturned cooler shudders under a sudden impact and Bokuto balks, scrambling away from it and down the next aisle.   
  
“Ibuprofen, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, ibuminophen -- wait, no,” he mumbles to himself as he scurries up and down the aisles, trying desperately hard not to despair at how _empty_ they are, at how well picked-over the pharmaceutical sections are. He wants to cry. One single, dry sob escapes before he tamps it back with a shuddering gulp of air and tries to refocus on his task.   
  
“Bo?” the voice is thin and weak and if Bokuto wasn’t so attuned to it he’d never have heard his name being called over the din of the undead outside. As it is, he angles himself reflexively, listening hard even as he continues scanning the shelves.  
  
“I can’t find anything!” he calls, half-hysterical, knocking over a shelf of hairspray in his hurry. The cans bounce hollowly on the cracked tile floors and go rolling away in all directions. Bokuto ignores it, though, because he’s found what he’s looking for -- an aisle marked “Painkillers, Fever reducers, Anti-allergens, First Aid”. He trips and falls heavily and scrabbles on the floor, practically throwing himself at the rack and rows of shelves, hoping, _praying_.  
  
It’s empty. Every row of shelves has been picked clean. There’s nothing. He screams in frustration, raking a hand through his hair.  
  
Kuroo tells him that the little premature patches of grey have spread to cover his whole head, and teases him by calling him an old man. Bokuto can’t see it, hasn’t seen his own reflection in months, but he hates the joke. They’re never going to live to be old men.  
  
“Bo?” Kuroo calls again, undercut with worry, this time, and Bokuto hurries back. Kuroo’s propped in a sitting position against what used to be a commercial fridge. There’d even been a forgotten container of margarine, tucked in the bottom, oily and half-mouldy but Bokuto had scooped out the bad bits and fed as much of it as he could to Kuroo before choking the remainder down himself.   
  
Kuroo has their gun in his lap.  
  
They only have two bullets left.   
  
Bokuto is very torn on what they should be doing with those two bullets.  
  
Kuroo sits back with his head tilted against the tempered glass, looking in Bokuto’s direction with glassy, fever-bright eyes. Bokuto skids to a stop next to him. “Hey, hey,” he hushes, trying to be soothing. His hand shakes against Kuroo’s cheek but he doesn’t think Kuroo can feel it at this point. He’s burning. “I’m right here.”  
  
“Y’ok?” Kuroo slurs, touching Bokuto’s cheek in return.  
  
Bokuto isn’t, he hasn’t been for a very long time, and it’s nearly impossible to pretend anymore. He hides the wobbling of his lips by pressing his a kiss to Kuroo’s forehead. It’s so, so hot. Bokuto’s starting to think that it might not be the zombies that kill him.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he says. “But I couldn’t find any of the ibuprofen or the… the…”  
  
“Acetaminophen,” Kuroo reminds him, smiling faintly even as the hopelessness settles back in behind his eyes. “Didn’t think you would. W-worth a try, though.”  
  
“I’m sorry.” It’s little more than a whisper, and Bokuto’s entire body shakes. He can’t stop the shaking.  
  
“No,” Kuroo says, and the barricaded door creaks and groans under the onslaught. Kuroo tightens his grip on Bokuto’s shirt collar. It’s still hopelessly weak, under the raging fever and the festering infection that Bokuto can smell, heavy and cloying, like rotten meat, hanging in the air around them.  
  
“I love you,” Bokuto says helplessly, desperately, because that’s all they have left, and Kuroo smiles and closes his eyes and leans limp against him, and whispers it back into Bokuto’s collarbone.


	22. Lev & Kuroo, Piracy and sea monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Minor violence

As the fantastic, swashbuckling captain that he was, Kuroo was always fully prepared to fight tooth and sword to the bitter end and go down with his ship, should it ever come to that. Of course, when he’d sworn as much, to himself and his men, he was expecting more along the lines of a heroic battle with another pirate ship over a trunk or two brimming with treasure, or a desperate fight against the Royal Navy when the lawmakers finally caught up with him, as lawmakers always do.  
  
But, well, he’d never actually _excluded_ “attack by a giant sea monster” -- because really, everyone knew that monsters didn’t exist. Sirens and mermaids were a product of drunkenness and dugongs and horny sailors, and huge sea snakes were just hazy waves and overactive imaginations.  
  
Or not.  
  
“It’s been an honour plundering with you all,” Kuroo announced, sword in hand and giving a lazy salute. His men looked grim, but they were all battle-hardened pirates and they knew how to fight when it counted. And none of them were outwardly freaking out yet, which Kuroo counted as a definite plus.  
  
Kenma sighed, like the entire situation was nothing more than a huge inconvenience. Still facing the crew, Kuroo ruffled his hair affectionately. The timbers of their ship creaked under the silvery-grey scales of the beast, where it wrapped around the bow of their ship, glittering in the sunlight.  
  
“Well, time to go do a captain thing,” Kuroo said, and without further ado he raised his sword, charged for the bow, and stabbed with impunity into the fishlike creature.  
  
The ship shuddered as the sea serpent flinched, and then it was moving, the coils sliding off the side, and something erupted from the water.  
  
It was a giant eel-like face, with huge, emerald-green eyes, an upcurved mouth, and an affronted expression.  
  
“Ouch!” it complained. “Why would you _do_ that?”  
  
Kuroo blinked. He opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at his crew, who all wore expressions showing variable degrees of confusion. “Uh. Come again?”  
  
The beast made a sound that he couldn’t interpret as anything but a petulant whine. “I wasn’t going to _break_ it, geeze! I just have a really bad itch under my scales, right here, see?” It raised a hump of its body out of the water, waving it slowly back and forth as saltwater sluiced back into the sea and onto the deck of Kuroo’s ship. “I needed to scratch it on something! And, you know, there aren’t that many options out here unless you go way, way down to the bottom and it’s cold down there!”  
  
The creature leaned down suddenly, tilting its head to the side like a puppy. “Say, will you scratch my scales for me?”  
  
And Kuroo, because he had a brain and knew that refusing the bizarre request of a hundred-odd-meter sea beast might possibly be a bad idea, obliged. The serpent’s eyes closed and it let out a hiss that was frightening at first, until Kuroo realized that it was more like a purr than a hiss, and that the barbels around the giant mouth were quivering in what appeared to be pleasure.  
  
Huh.  
  
“I like you. I’m going to keep you,” it said, with all the macho confidence of a creature that nobody would ever dare oppose. Kuroo felt a faint flicker of alarm, but then the beast lowered its head to the deck, staring at him out of one giant eye, and said, “I’m Leviathan, but you can call me Lev, that’s what everyone calls me, what’s your name?”  
  
“Er. Kuroo.”  
  
“Kuroo,” Lev echoed with a distinctly satisfied tone. It dipped back into the water until only its head was above the surface, stretched out along the side of the ship. Its head was almost as long as the ship, and Kuroo wondered giddily just _how_ big the thing was.   
  
It scraped up against the side of the ship, causing it to heel slightly to the side and emit a somewhat disconcerting echoing creak. “Well, Kuroo,” Lev said, rolling over so its pale underbelly was briefly exposed to the sun. “Where are you going? I’m coming too!”  
  
“This is going to make the whole piracy thing much easier,” Kenma murmured, and Kuroo agreed wholeheartedly.


	23. Bokuto/Kuroo, Avatar: The Last Airbender AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: None

Kuroo feels a little out of place, in his new Earth Kingdom greens, but it’s safer, this way. Still, even without his uniform, he’s paranoid of being recognized, of being jailed or executed or dragged back and… punished.

He’s not the first-ever Fire Nation Army deserter, which takes a bit of the pressure off of him, presumably. Because nobody cares about the fourth deserter, right? Nothing special about fourth place.

He still sees his face on Wanted posters, scattered throughout the Earth Kingdom, and he surreptitiously removed and burns every one.

It’s safer if they don’t stay in the towns, and Kuroo has always felt more comfortable in the wild, anyway. He’s just contemplating how he should go about constructing their cookfire -- because no matter how many times he looks around and sees no signs of life, he always wonders _what if somebody is watching_. Not that he particularly minds making a fire the more traditional way, but, well… he’s just not very good at it. He desperately wants to snap his fingers but every time he goes to do it, he freezes up.

Cheerful whistling drifts to him on the wind, and Kuroo perks up. Finally.

“Tetsu, my man!” Bokuto calls with typical exuberance as he rounds a boulder. His arms are laden with supplies -- waterskins, a few pots and pans to replace the ones they’d lost in that flash flood, and enough food for a veritable feast. Kuroo zeros in on a giant mackerelpike fillet and he rubs his hands together in unconscious glee. He has to sternly remind himself not to steal it right out of Bokuto’s hands and throw it on the fire.

Except they still don’t have a fire. It’s just a carefully-assembled pyramid of kindling and sticks.

Kuroo gestures at the would-be firepit. “Bo, if you don’t mind?”

Bokuto grins and cracks his knuckles, and he crafts a perfect little stone pit and grill around the collapsed pile of sticks. “Oops.”

Kuroo’s already hastily picking them back up, and he distractedly tells Bokuto not to worry, before lowering his hands into the relative safety of the low rock walls and clicking a fire to life. He wills it bigger, hotter, and wastes absolutely no time in rubbing spices over the fish and placing it carefully above the red flames to cook. Immediately, the mouthwatering scent fills the air and Kuroo breathes it deep.

It’s been a very long time since he’s had mackerelpike. It smells like home. The good parts of home.

Bokuto bounces up beside him and sits back on his heels, then leans until Kuroo tips over and Bokuto falls on top of him. He giggles and kisses Kuroo’s cheek.

“Your favourite, right?” he says eagerly. “I had to get it for you.”

Kuroo wraps his arms around Bokuto’s waist and thinks about how happy he is, here, lying in the dirt in traitor’s colours, with the most wonderful person in the world. The person who he gave up his world for, and he knows he’d do it again in a heartbeat. He moves his hands up to Bokuto’s shoulderblades and pulls him down for a proper kiss.

 


	24. Akaashi/Bokuto, Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Demons, supernatural elements, mild angst, swearing

  
The power flickers and goes out, and the gym plunges into darkness. Bokuto hears the rattling sigh and feels the chill in his bones and knows that it’s a demon.  
  
The first thing that comes to mind is a simple, two-word thought: _protect Akaashi_.  
  
Akaashi, simple human that he is, doesn’t feel the shifting in the planes like Bokuto does, but he can clearly tell something’s wrong, because his normally composed face is uneasy and he steps a little closer to Bokuto. “Power outage?” he asks softly, and Bokuto shakes his head.  
  
“I don’t think so. I think it’s --” He’s cut off by a loud, grating roar. He grabs Akaashi’s hand and gets ready to run.  
  
Akaashi gasps. “What _is_ that?”   
  
But Bokuto doesn’t have time to answer, because the demon passes through the crack under the door and starts to manifest in the gym, a swirling miasma of dark energy that Bokuto really, really does not want to see in a corporeal form. Unfortunately, the demon blocks their only exit from the gym and Bokuto takes their only other option and shoves Akaashi into the equipment closet.  
  
He’s never been particularly good at thinking straight in a panic. Bad news for his magic.  
  
Akaashi has lost almost all of his usual composure. He’s gripping Bokuto’s hand in a hold like iron, wild-eyed and whisper-shouting, “What is that, what’s going on, what the _fuck_ is happening,” over and over and over.  
  
Bokuto can’t focus. He needs to clear his head, to draw up his magic from the well of energy deep in his soul, but he can’t concentrate with Akaashi’s panic amplifying his own. He can’t focus. The demon roars again and they both flinch.  
  
“Akaashi,” he says desperately, “ _Akaashi_.” He grabs Akaashi’s chin with his free hand and makes Akaashi meet his eyes. “I need the amulet I gave you, give it to me.”  
  
Akaashi looks at hims with an incredulous expression. “What? Bokuto-san, I _really_ don’t think this is the time for your pretending --”  
  
“My _what_?”  
  
Akaashi’s jaw shakes. “Bokuto-san, I’m scared. I don’t appreciate you playing games.”  
  
Bokuto goes still. “You think this is a game?”  
  
“Magic isn’t real!”  
  
Everything starts spinning around Bokuto, and his head is full of white noise. He has to shout to hear himself over it. “You think I’m pretending.” He sucks in a breath. “Akaashi. What did you do with the amulet?”  
  
Akaashi looks at him like he’s grown a second head, apprehensive and starting to get impatient, and he says, “I don’t know.”  
  
“I told you to keep it with you.”  
  
Akaashi doesn’t say anything.  
  
“There are powerful protective spells on that amulet. I gave it to you to keep you safe. There’s a piece of my _soul_ inside it.”  
  
“Bokuto --”  
  
“I trusted you.”  
  
Bokuto suddenly feels very calm. His head clears, and he thinks of nothing at all.   
  
When he opens the door to the gym, the demon has manifested fully, dark and snarling, but Bokuto doesn’t falter. He closes his eyes, gathers his energy, and the spell bursts out of him in a spark of white-hot light. The demon screeches, high and agonized, the sound cutting off abruptly when the demon is vaporized.   
  
Bokuto lets the spell drop away, now that the demon is gone. He feels the aftershocks of it singing through his body and he knows that his hair will be white for several long minutes while the leftovers from the spell dissipate into the air and across the boundary between planes.  
  
His vision blurs. “I trusted you,” he says again, and the betrayal stings like a burn. Bokuto pulls his magic around himself like a cloak and he jumps into the between-space. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but anywhere is better than here.


	25. Bokuto/Kuroo, Mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: None
> 
> This is a remix of [this SASO 2016 fill.](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/13489.html?thread=4405425#cmt4405425)

Kuroo wakes up in the best way. He comes to awareness slowly, and admittedly a little reluctantly, but it’s the weekend and he mentally praises everything he can think of that there’s no alarm ringing and shaking against the bedside table. Instead, there’s a faint glow of morning light through their not-quite-thick-enough curtains, the bitter scent and puttering sound of brewing coffee drifting in from the kitchen, and, best of all, Bokuto’s arm heavy and comfortable on his hip. He lies still for several long moments, absorbing the morning and trying to convince himself to wake the rest of the way up.  
  
The pillow over his head is carefully lifted, and now he can hear birdsong through the open window.  
  
“I know you’re awake,” Bokuto says, almost whispering. His breath ghosts across Kuroo’s cheek and makes him shiver, and Kuroo is torn between a desire to reclaim the pillow and lounge in sleepy comfort, or rolling over.   
  
He settles on the latter. Bokuto’s big and muscley and his big muscles make for excellent substitute pillows. Bokuto laughs when Kuroo flops around and shoves his face against his bicep, and Kuroo only grumbles a little bit when Bokuto worms his arm around Kuroo’s shoulders and hugs him tight against his chest.  
  
Bokuto isn’t wearing his usual sleeping shirt, and Kuroo smells cut grass and soap on his skin. Bokuto’s already been up and gone for his morning run and showered, and Kuroo’s still in bed. He feels vaguely pathetic about that, but also -- he’s pretty certain that morning runs are the work of the devil. He much prefers running in the late evening, when the sun is down and the pavement is warm from the day but the air has cooled and, more importantly, he’s actually awake and ready to wind down for the night.   
  
He’d thought owls were supposed to like being up at night, but Bokuto has almost as strong an aversion to Kuroo’s evening runs as Kuroo does to the morning ones. They compromise by running together in the middle of the day, when the sun is high and hot and they’re both unhappy about it.  
  
Bokuto jogs his shoulder, and Kuroo blinks a sleepy scowl at him. “It’s like ten-thirty,” he says, in a tone that suggests that ten-thirty is somehow _not_ an appropriate time to wake up on the weekends. He pauses to kiss Kuroo’s forehead. “You wanna get up now?” he asks, not even trying to hide his eagerness. “I made coffee and breakfast and I texted Kenma, he’s gonna come over to play that new game later but we have time to go shopping or to the library or something first if you want.”  
  
Kuroo zeroes in on the most important word in Bokuto’s little speech. “Coffee,” he agrees, and Bokuto’s breath is toothpaste-minty when he laughs in Kuroo’s face and kisses him again.  
  
“Yeah yeah. You addict.” He says it fondly, as if Kuroo’s need for caffeine hadn’t been a point of contention for them in the first few months they lived together, before Bokuto aggressively learned how to use the coffee machine and Kuroo figured out how to navigate mornings with an exhaustingly energetic partner without being (as Kenma put it, during a somewhat forlorn phone call) a troublesome grouch.  
  
Kuroo realizes that Bokuto is watching him with a worried, self-conscious expression, and he can tell that the prolonged stillness is starting to get to him. He finally rolls and stretches and makes slow movements towards getting out of bed. Bokuto is on his feet in a second, and he reaches a hand out to Kuroo in some parody of gallantry. Kuroo uses it to pull himself up and into Bokuto’s arms. He kisses him -- close-mouthed, because Bokuto’s lips might be minty fresh but Kuroo’s morning breath is legendary in its awfulness.   
  
“I love you,” Kuroo mumbles against his mouth. He feels Bokuto’s answering grin.  
  
“Yeah? Even before coffee?”  
  
Kuroo steps deliberately on his foot on the way to the kitchen. Bokuto yelps and laughs and he perches eagerly on the counter while Kuroo drains his first cup, then immediately launches into a detailed story of what he’d seen on his run that morning, where he’d gone, what he and Akaashi talked about yesterday while Kuroo was in class.  
  
When he goes to refill his mug, Kuroo catches one of Bokuto’s flailing hands and squeezes it tight.   
  
“Always,” he says firmly, and Bokuto blinks, then ducks his head in embarrassed relief.   
  
“I know,” Bokuto mumbles at his lap. “Just, sometimes… you know…” he flounders for words for a moment, then gives up with a self-conscious shrug.  
  
Kuroo squeezes his hand again and goes in for a kiss that Bokuto dodges with a loud complaint about his disgusting breath. “I do.”


	26. Kyoutani/Yahaba, Dogboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Shapeshifting, swearing, nudity
> 
> This is a remix of [this SASO 2016 fill.](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/13489.html?thread=4114353#cmt4114353)

Yahaba cannot believe this situation. It’s completely stupid. Completely, totally dumb. He can’t believe that his life has led to this point, standing naked in an alleyway at shitfuck o’clock in the middle of the week with some kid alternately staring at the ground, his face, and his junk, asking him, of _all fucking things_ , what breed of dog he is.  
  
This is utterly ridiculous.  
  
Yahaba throws one hand in the air, cups the other protectively around his dick, and for some reason, probably because he’s tired and on edge and still really, really naked, he answers the question. “If you must know, I’m an Afghan Hound.”  
  
You know. Mostly. There’s something else in there too, probably, or at least that’s what they’d decided that one time Oikawa had convinced Yahaba to shift forms and thereafter spent about two hours consulting the internet about dog breeds before giving up and calling Iwaizumi, who, surprisingly enough, knows all about this stuff because apparently his aunt judges dog shows.  
  
But like hell is Yahaba going to admit that he’s a _mutt_ to some stranger.  
  
Kyoutani purses his lips and furrows his eyebrows, and he’s either thinking about that or trying to hold in a fart. Yahaba honestly doesn’t care which, but he does really wish that he’d move out of the way, already, because Yahaba sort of wants to go home now, thank you. He needs a shower and a nap and something to eat that isn’t the pizza crust his dog form fished out of a garbage bin behind the Domino’s a few blocks away.  
  
Finally, Kyoutani speaks. “I didn’t think you looked like an Afghan Hound,” he says with a very serious tone and very little tact. Yahaba flushes high on his cheeks and grinds his teeth together. “Would you show me again?”  
  
“No,” Yahaba blurts reflexively, and Kyoutani’s face falls a little. And then he gets that thinking-fart look again.  
  
“Is it like… are you a werewolf? You can’t control it?”  
  
Of all the insulting -- Yahaba growls under his breath (a human growl, thank you very much) and says, “Do I _look_ like a ravenous beast to you?” before he promptly shifts back into his dog form. He puffs his chest out and sets his ears back and resents the fact that he has to tilt his head to one side in order to look up at Kyoutani.  
  
“No,” Kyoutani murmurs, and he reaches down to rub Yahaba’s ears.  
  
And -- oh. That feels good. That feels really good. Yahaba’s tail starts wagging before he can think to stop it, and it completely ruins the effect of the warning huff he gives to tell Kyoutani to back off.  
  
“Cute,” Kyoutani says to himself. If Yahaba had been human, he would never have heard it, but his dog ears are excellent at hearing things people don’t mean them to. His traitorous tail wags even faster at the compliment. Kyoutani continues kneading at his ears with one hand, but the other one scruffs down his back, with scratching fingernails, and Yahaba practically drools, it feels so good.  
  
“Do you want to come home with me?” Kyoutani asks.  
  
Several things run through Yahaba’s mind at that. The first is, fuck off, no he doesn’t, he has his own home, he’s not some stray. The second is that this boy probably is stupid, actually, after all, if he’s just inviting some random dogboy home with him.   
  
Unfortunately for Yahaba’s human sensibilities, the dog is predominant in the front of his mind right now, and the dog really really likes ear rubs and back scratches and especially the scent of bacon emanating from a grocery bag in Kyoutani’s backpack, and so despite Yahaba’s better judgement, he barks assent and follows Kyoutani out of the alleyway.  
  
He can always go home later.


	27. Akaashi/Bokuto, Wings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Referenced injury
> 
> This is a remix of [this SASO 2016 fill.](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/13489.html?thread=4241841#cmt4241841)

  
When the break in his wing heals, Bokuto takes up the bizarrely human pursuit of weightlifting.

He’s already well-muscled from flying, especially through his back and core, and even though his bones are hollow and feather-light, he’s strong. Which means that Akaashi doesn’t quite understand, when he asks, why Bokuto’s explanation is a simple, “To be stronger.”

The exercises are improvised and a little ridiculous, but Akaashi knows better, by now, than to laugh when Bokuto puts earnest effort into something. So when Bokuto takes Akaashi’s heaviest free weights in hand and does set after set of jump-hop takeoffs, bouncing around his home like an oversized starling, Akaashi simply chooses an exercise of his own and works beside him.

It’s nice, he thinks. The company. And he feels guilty for thinking it, because Bokuto had been miserable through his convalescence and is completely delighted with his ability to return to the sky, to travel over the lands and seas and clouds again… to leave Akaashi alone. Even if Bokuto is going to spend most of his time with Akaashi with weights in his hands, at least he’s there.

“Akaashi,” Bokuto says one day, bright and intense and with the afternoon sun slanting through his feathers and making them glow. “Akaashi, I want to show you something.”

He holds out his hand, and Akaashi, ever-willing, takes it without hesitation. Bokuto pulls him eagerly out onto the balcony, and Akaashi opens his mouth but before he can speak Bokuto heaves him up, bridal style -- Akaashi can feel Bokuto’s strong, fluttering heartbeat and his own quickens in response.

And then, Bokuto jumps.

It takes everything Akaashi has not to shout in alarm; instead, he scrabbles for a hold on Bokuto’s shirt, and tries to ground himself with the feeling of Bokuto’s chest firm under his hand.

It’s difficult, with the sensation of air rushing around his feet.

“Akaashi. Akaashi, open your eyes.”

“Bokuto --”

“Trust me. I won’t let you fall.”

So Akaashi opens his eyes.

The world is different, viewed from above. Everything looks flat, like a painting, and Akaashi’s grip slackens unconsciously as he watches. The sun is warm on his face, and Bokuto’s wings swish in near silence. “Oh,” he breathes.

Bokuto’s arm twitches under his back, and when Akaashi looks, Bokuto is grinning a squinty-eyed smile, one that stretches from ear-to-ear. He flicks his eyes forward, and the grin widens, and he says, “Hold on a sec.”

Akaashi wonders what else, exactly, Bokuto expects he could do. He dutifully maintains his hold on Bokuto’s shoulder and watches his face and his wings.

They land in a tree, Bokuto flapping heavily on the descent and if it’s not the most graceful landing Akaashi’s ever seen him do, he’s not complaining.

Bokuto wraps a wing around Akaashi’s shoulders. It’s warm from the sun and exertion and Akaashi leans ever-so-slightly into the touch.

“I wanted to show you,” Bokuto says simply, staring out at the sun. “I had to get stronger so you could see.”

And Akaashi sees.

 


	28. Hinata/Kageyama/Kenma, Transit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Poly relationship
> 
> This is a remix of [this SASO 2016 fill.](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/13489.html?thread=4736177#cmt4736177)

Getting to Miyagi was so troublesome. The train ride was long, and it rattled uncomfortably through the countryside. To make matters worse, it was an older train -- one without every-seat charging outlets, and Kenma’s DS died a sadly beeping death somewhere in Utsunomiya. Luckily he had his portable phone charger, but Candy Crush just didn’t compare to Fire Emblem and he was in a rather foul mood when the train finally pulled into the station in Torono.  
  
He wasn’t given any more time to wallow -- with a loud drumming of feet and a high-pitched “Kenmaaaa!”, he was officially distracted. Kenma made sure to tuck his phone safely away in the pocket of his hoodie before Hinata reached him with a flying leap, and they only managed to not fall to the ground together by Kageyama’s quick action. Hinata made a strangled choking sound when Kageyama yanked back on his hood, and retaliated with a stomp on Kageyama’s foot.  
  
Kenma couldn’t help but smile despite himself, and small as it was both of the other boys noticed. Kageyama immediately turned pink and Hinata’s own smile grew impossibly wider.  
  
There was… something, between them all. Kenma had tried to avoid naming it, thus far, and while he saw the looks Hinata and Kageyama shared and knew what they meant, and he saw the way they both looked at him, and he knew how he felt about them -- both of them, both, and how strange was _that_ \-- he stubbornly refused to think what it could mean.  
  
Hinata and Kageyama bickered over who got to sit beside Kenma on the bus that wound up and around the mountain to Hinata’s home. Kenma finally solved that argument by simply standing up, and they gathered in a vague triangle around Kageyama as he held onto the roof rail -- Hinata made a futile grab before resolving to balance, and falling against Kenma half a moment later when the bus made a sudden jerk. Kenma had no such pride and wrapped his arm, instead, around Kageyama’s waist. Kageyama stared out the window with an aggressive pout on his face and a blush high on his cheekbones. After a moment, he reached for Hinata, hauling him closer and tucking him against his free side, all while refusing to make eye contact and mumbling, “Don’t want you to fall.”  
  
“Wasn’t gonna,” Hinata shot back, but he cuddled against Kageyama, one hand twisted into Kenma’s shirtsleeve, and Kenma turned his face into Kageyama’s shoulder to hide his own fondness.


	29. Kenma/Kuroo, Sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Non-sexual sleeping together
> 
> Prompt: Muffled laughter during a sleepover

It was an unspoken assumption that Kenma and Kuroo would set up their futons next to each other during the Fukurodani Group training camp. Everyone knew they were dating -- well, except for Lev, maybe -- and even without that, they’d spent half their lives sleeping in the same room, anyway. It wasn’t unexpected in the slightest. Yaku tucked himself in on Kuroo’s other side, and Yamamoto and Lev had a brief argument over Kenma until Fukunaga snuck in and claimed the coveted spot, and from there the rest of their sleeping arrangements fell out easily enough.   
  
Yaku, for one, regretted letting the captain and his boyfriend choose places next to each other almost immediately after lights out. Because despite Kuroo’s lecture on proper sleep and how they needed to treat their bodies in order to achieve peak athletic performance, he sure did _not_ go right to sleep.  
  
It started with rustling. But they were all rustling, because they were a bunch of teenagers in a room together, and of course that brought some ambient noise.   
  
And then there was the giggling.  
  
Kuroo was trying to muffle it, to be fair, but he was doing a terrible job and everyone could hear him. Everyone in the adjoining rooms, too, probably, in Yaku’s opinion. After about five minutes of this, he rolled over and jammed his knee into Kuroo’s back and hissed, “Keep it down!”  
  
“Sorry,” Kuroo whispered back.  
  
There was silence for the next handful of minutes. Blessed, welcome silence. Yaku was exhausted. He had almost fallen asleep when he heard Kenma’s voice, kept low and quiet. It wasn’t enough to disturb him, really, and Yaku just shifted a little.  
  
But then Kuroo giggled again.  
  
Yaku was going to kill him. In the morning; he was too tired to move right now.  
  
Kenma muttered something, eliciting another snicker from Kuroo. Someone on their other side -- Inuoka, maybe -- made a halfhearted shushing sound, but then Kuroo started wiggling under his blankets, and then Kenma giggled, and Yaku was going to kill them both, all of them, the entire team, if he didn’t get some sleep ASAP.  
  
“Would you  _shut up?_ ” he snarled at his regular volume, ignoring Inuoka when he made the shushing sound again. “I’m trying to sleep!”  
  
“Stop talking then,” Kuroo suggested in a loud whisper. Kenma scooted up to give Yaku a heavy-lidded look from Kuroo’s pillow. He rolled his eyes in his boyfriend’s direction and scooted back down into the blankets.  
  
Yaku clenched his jaw and flopped onto his back. Idiots.


	30. Bokuto/Kuroo: Mood swings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Very light angst
> 
> Prompt: [When I'm Up (I Can't Get Down)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuiwZaQ5JFk), by Great Big Sea

Kuroo had apparently chosen the worst possible moment to look down at his phone. Or maybe the best -- because, this way, he was completely surprised by the loud ringing-out of a very familiar voice.  
  
“Hey hey hey! Tetsurou!”   
  
Kuroo was already grinning before he even saw Bokuto, all 185 cm of him stretched to the tip of an arm waving above the commuter crowd. Kuroo returned the wave and opened his arms in a universal gesture.  
  
“Tetsurou!” Bokuto yelled again, closer, and he launched himself into Kuroo for a rough, wrestling approximation of a hug.  
  
“The heck are you doing here so soon?” Kuroo asked. He gave Bokuto a fond whack to the arm. “I wasn’t expecting you ‘til the six o’clock train.”  
  
“Knew you’d be here early, you  _nerd_ , so I thought I’d surprise you!” Bokuto’s grin faltered abruptly. “Unless, uh.”  
  
“No! No no no, this is  _great_  Bo-chan,” Kuroo assured, and Bokuto’s face split into his signature radiant grin again, even as he rolled his eyes.  
  
“That nickname,” he sighed, looking to the sky in a gesture of supplication.  
  
“The fuckin’ best nickname,” Kuroo said.  
  
Bokuto scoffed. “Yeah, whatever.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the exit. “Let’s get out of here, man! Places to go, things to see --” He perked up. “Hey, you live near Kenma, right?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” Kuroo tried to take Bokuto’s bag, playing the gentleman, but Bokuto held on to it and Kuroo gave up after a brief, undignified scuffle. “He got a new game on Thursday, though, so it’ll probably be hard to drag him out for too long. Besides,” he added, with a leer, “that way I get you more to myself.”  
  
Bokuto laughed, at that, and bumped his hip against Kuroo’s as they waited for the bus. His mood seemed to drop precipitously on the ride back to Kuroo’s home, though, and he didn’t react to Kuroo’s joking attempts to draw him back up.  
  
“You’re weirding me out,” Kuroo finally announced, walking up the driveway. He fished for his key in a pocket. “Did I do something?”  
  
Bokuto blinked, wide owl eyes. “What? No! Of course not!”  
  
“Then why are you acting so bummed?”  
  
To Kuroo’s surprise, Bokuto’s reaction wasn’t to immediately confess or dissemble -- instead, he turned red to the roots of his hair and mumbled something under his breath.  
  
“Uh?”  
  
“I  _said_ ,” Bokuto kicked at the back of Kuroo’s shoe, “that I wanted to hold your hand but I wasn’t sure if you’d wanna.”  
  
Kuroo stared at him for a moment. Then; “Idiot,” he said fondly, and he pulled Bokuto over the threshold by the hand.  



	31. Tsukishima/Yamaguchi, Pacific Rim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Major injury (offscreen), angst
> 
> Prompt: Tsukishima in the Jaeger with his brother's old uniform.
> 
> This is set in the same universe as [chapter 6](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7995565/chapters/18301900)

Yamaguchi and his crew have been working hard overtime to repair Lunar Kozane after her last fight ended in near disaster, almost a week ago. He’s running exclusively on caffeine and adrenaline at this point. Lunar’s entire left side is trashed, and Yamaguchi is probably more sensitive than most to the particular kind of goriness that is the exposed cable tubes and shattered muscle plating of a broken Jaeger.  
  
Which isn’t to say that the iron-rust bloodstains in the wreck of the cockpit don’t fill him with nauseating horror. Kei and Akiteru were lucky to escape with their lives. Beyond lucky. Yamaguchi went down to try to see them, once, the day after the battle, but Akiteru’d still been in surgery, and Kei was asleep. In the days since, he hasn’t had a free moment -- even his sleep has been caught in fits and trips on various parts of Lunar Kozane’s anatomy. He hasn’t taken his safety harness off in almost three days.  
  
And that’s how he finds Kei -- or rather, how Kei finds him. Yamaguchi is snatching a quick nap in Lunar’s cockpit. The right side, where the blood was thinnest and has already been scraped and cleaned off. He wakes with a start when someone -- Suga, he thinks, probably -- starts up a blowtorch on Lunar’s shoulder.  
  
It takes him a moment to notice Kei, but when he does he startles again, body reacting on instinct before his mind can catch up.  
  
“Tsukki?” he says, half worried. “Hey, Tsukki! I’m sorry I haven’t been down to see you, we’ve been working non-stop, and you were asleep the first time, and… are you okay?”  
  
Kei is standing still and silent as he leans against his interfacer. Akiteru’s is gone. Broken beyond repair, and Yamaguchi had helped to remove the remnants just the day before.   
  
“Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks again.  
  
Kei finally blinks. “I’m fine,” he says, voice rough, and he immediately betrays himself with the few halting, limping steps he takes to maneuver himself to sit down. Yamaguchi lets him have his lie, though, and scoots the short distance to Kei’s side.  
  
“Good,” he whispers against Kei’s cheek. Kei is stiff in Yamaguchi’s gentle hug, looking down at a scrap of black fabric in his hands.  
  
“Is that --?”  
  
“Akiteru’s suit,” Kei says. He sounds robotic. He  _looks_  robotic.   
  
“Is he okay?” Yamaguchi asks the question, and dreads the answer.  
  
Kei’s jaw clenches and unclenches, and Yamaguchi feels is on the side of his head. “Don’t know,” Kei eventually answers. “Still critical.”  
  
“Oh, Tsukki.” Yamaguchi holds him tighter.


	32. Kuroo & Yaku, Pacific Rim AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Strongly implied past character death, disfigurement, angst, bad language
> 
> Prompt: Space/PacRim AU where both of them hate each others’ guts due to a past feud. Following a major battle, they’re the only ones who are Drift-compatible and fit for combat. A huge and ridiculously powerful Kaiju is approaching. It’s Drift or Die.
> 
> Can you tell that I love PacRim AUs yet?

Kuroo still feels Kenma in his mind and his bones and his  _soul_  when a category four kaiju breaches the rift just north of Hokkaido. He’s nowhere near healthy, physically or mentally, but Marshal Sawamura comes to him personally, in his little sickbay bed. And Daichi doesn’t need to say anything. Kuroo knows. And nothing, in the last four days since Neko Heartshield went down, has been harder than getting out of that bed, feeling the phantom crush around his arm and leg and ribcage, but he goes anyway.  
  
He knows, better than most, that there’s nobody else.  
  
Tigerstrike was lost with her captains a month ago, in a co-ordinated multinational attack on the breach that left not a single pilot left alive. Silver Ace went down a week previous, broken and scattered across the continental shelf in a million pieces, and Kuroo has heard the beeping of machines and soft groans and whimpers from the Haibas as they convalesce behind a canvas curtain on the other side of the room.  
  
Kuroo sets his jaw against a wince and straightens his back. “Neko repaired?” he manages to ask as his fingers twitch reflexively for a gauntlet and control panel that aren’t there.  
  
Daichi twists his lips and shakes his head. “Salvage teams are still working,” he says, and he seems to take a bracing breath. “You’ll be going out in Guardian Night.”  
  
Kuroo stops in his tracks. “No,” he says. And louder, “ _No_.”  
  
A few feet ahead of him, Daichi stops, too. “You don’t have a choice,” he says, and while there’s sympathy, there, the statement is iron. “There is nobody else. You will co-pilot Guardian and you will protect our nation.” Daichi spins, then, and wheels into Kuroo’s space until the front of his chair bump against Kuroo’s shins. He looks up at Kuroo, steely-eyed, and adds, “That’s an  _order_.”  
  
Kuroo thinks about sharing his mind ( _sharing Kenma,_  a part of him whispers) with Yaku, and he feels nauseous.  
  
“Yes, sir.”  
  
Guardian Night is nothing like Neko Heartshield. It’s small and tough and built for brawling, and its remaining pilot is the same. Kuroo sees Yaku tense when he walks into the cockpit, and really, it’s a mutual reaction. They wordlessly take their places, Kuroo trying not to think about old resentments and fresh pains.  
  
Yaku breaks the silence first. “You look like shit,” he comments, to which Kuroo raises an eyebrow and nods towards the space where Yaku’s left hand should be. Yaku’s lips twitch in something that could be a grimace or a grin, or both, and he shakes his head.  
  
“Kai says that if we, quote, can’t get along for once in our stupid lives, he’ll kick both our asses and then handcuff us together for a week.”  
  
Kuroo can’t help but crack a grin at that, and Yaku grins back. Kai’s voice buzzes across the comm lines -- “ _That’s right. Initializing drift now._ ” -- and he feels the neural link firing up.  
  
“I swear to god, Yaku, don’t go poking around in my head.”  
  
“You stay the fuck out of mine,” Yaku retorts.  
  
And then they drift.

**Author's Note:**

> Talk fandom to me on Twitter at [@paxlegomenon](https://twitter.com/paxlegomenon).


End file.
